"I couldn't tell anybody," WWII Veteran recalls secret mission, celebrates 100th birthday
WALL – Robert Doane of Freehold was embracing his five-month-old great-granddaughter Madeline Miller on his lap on Saturday at Monmouth Executive Airport. The World War II veteran was surprised the night before by his family, who had arranged for an aircraft, to fly into Wall, for his 100th birthday.
The aircraft, a TBM Avenger Torpedo Bomber, was the type Doane flew during his service in the Navy on the Pacific front.
Born on a farm in Flemington on July 25, 1923, Doane spent most of his childhood by the Shore in Long Branch. When he was 3, his father, who fought in World War I, died.
About 15 years later, Pearl Harbor was bombed, bringing the US into World War II. Doane, who was 19 and attending Red Bank Catholic, voluntarily enlisted in the Navy on December 14, 1942.
“I knew my (draft) number was coming up,” he said. “I was going to enlist in the Marines, (but) I couldn’t find the Marine Corps in New York. … So, I found the Navy.”
Years In Service
He trained at the Naval Station Great Lakes before being sent to Oklahoma to specialize in ordnances and guns.
He received the rank of Aviation Ordnanceman, Second Class and was deployed to the USS Independence CVL-22 on the Pacific Front as a gunner on the back of TBM Avenger Torpedo Bombers.
“I couldn’t tell anybody,” Doane remembered. One of the reasons being, Doane was part of the first night squadron called the Night Torpedo Squadron Forty-One. The squadron would find targets with newly employed radar technology.
His mother, however, received a hint regarding her son’s whereabouts. Doane’s Squadron Chaplin had written her a letter explaining that Doane’s location could not be disclosed, but that he was alive. The letter was written on official USS Independence letterhead.
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During his mission in active war zones, his squadron flew nearly every night.
“I was scared a lot of times,” he said.
With a pilot and a navigator in front, Doane sat facing the back. To take off, planes were catapulted off the runway via a shuttle.
When returning, Doane and the pilots would have to figure out how to find their ship in the dark. Due to the sensitive nature of the missions, all lights on the ship were blacked out.
“Radar was new,” Doane said, remembering that it would sometimes work, but stop working during other times. He recalls a man in his squadron who was gifted in operating the radar.
The man would “pick out a blip and we’d chase it.”
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The squadron launched bombs against targets in Luzon and Okinawa and sank Japanese ships in the Surigao Strait.
“The Philippines was a big operation,” Doane said. Japan had invaded the Philippines in 1941 and took full control the following year. In 1944, the US began its counteroffensive and the island territory was liberated in 1945, receiving independence the following year.
When flying, Doane carried a rosary that was gifted to him by a family friend from Long Branch.
After his return from the Pacific, Doane was sent to Jacksonville, Florida where he trained for the proposed invasion of Japan.
Homecoming
The war ended when the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Doane remembers celebrating with his unit over rum and cokes.
Three months later on November 30, 1945, he was honorably discharged, receiving the Combat Action Medal, Navy Good Conduct Medal, Navy Air Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Medal and World War II Victory Medal.
“For being in war, I was very lucky,” Doane said. “I had a warm bed every night aboard a ship.”
Doane returned to New Jersey and worked at Fort Monmouth as an artist and illustrator.
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On June 25, 1949, he married Helen Shields, a schoolteacher who taught in Freehold Township. The couple moved to Freehold borough where they raised their five daughters.
Doane said his wife was “the only real love of my life.”
Shields passed in 2012.
“She was a good mother – that was for sure,” Doane said. “About a quarter of an inch taller than me. Couldn’t wear heels.”
Susan O’Connor, Doane’s youngest daughter, remembers growing up hearing her father’s war stories.
“He was a bit of a hellraiser,” she said.
One of her favorite stories involved her father and his pilots when they flew across the US.
“He flew under a bridge on the Mississippi river,” she said. “That was a big no-no. They luckily didn’t get caught.”
Doane, who shakes off any praises of his service, said his greatest achievement is raising his family, which has grown to include 14 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
David Dodds, a former Delta pilot and O’Connor’s brother-in-law, found Doane fascinating.
“It’s so interesting to hear the stories of that generation,” he said. “There are not too many people who can tell their stories anymore. We, in our age group, have never experienced something like that. That time period where the country came together.”
Dodds arranged through acquaintances for the TBM Avenger Torpedo Bomber to fly from the American Airpower Museum in Long Island to the Monmouth Executive Airport, which waved its landing fees and donated the gasoline needed for its return trip.
The plane, operated by Nick Ziroli, was built in 1944, but never saw action, resulting in its preservation.
Doane served on the Knights of Columbus and attends Saint Rose of Lima Parish in Freehold.
“He was driving until he was 98 and then voluntarily said, you know what, I’m 98 I better not drive any longer,” O’Connor said. “We’re very blessed with having him as long as we’ve had and as healthy as he has been.”
Olivia Liu is a reporter covering transportation, Red Bank and western Monmouth County. She can be reached at oliu@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: WWII Veteran recalls service, celebrates 100th birthday
